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frozen /unfrozen

Life is fluid and never set. There is no script. But I find that in the course of a day.. it can crystalize into a script. Life freezes into a perception, becoming a world of narrow options and expectations. When I walk around like this.. encountering other people with shared history.. my fixed perception is like a mould that they fill and become cast by, without even knowing it. They just play along. It is an amazing thing to observe, and it goes both ways, of course. But when I sit and forget into simple presence, I walk out the door with no fixed perception, no baggage of history, and no mould for a fluid world to fill. When encountering the same people, they are not cast, and they are just as free. Everything is alive, with no fixed outcome. There is a quality that long-time practitioners have, of always dropping and being new again, and again, and again. It is like the image of "mind" as space. Space itself remains unstained and undisturbed by the life that fills it, whether it is a passing butterfly or a passing storm. It is an inspiring and encouraging quality to be around..

Re: frozen /unfrozen

Hi Kojip,

In Gerry Shishin Wick's comments about case 3 the second to last paragraph

The verse says "A hero's strength tears through nested enclosures." Breathing in, you're a minister. Breathing out you're a general. These "nested enclosures" are all of the cloaks that we wear. "I am a teacher." "I am a Buddhist." "I am an artist." Breathe in and you see past the teacher. Breathe out and you see beyond the artist. The hero's strength tears through these wrappers that we put around ourselves. Each time we breathe it is a new sutra.

This resonated with me and I think its a similar point to yours, I feel I almost have a different cloak for all the people I meet, whether its the father cloak, husband cloak, colleague cloak, teacher, student etc. I mould into what I think is their perception or expectations are of me. I feel that the only point at which these cloaks are dropped is during Zazen. When Zazen leaks out into daily life we become the hero or are we the hero already?

These thoughts led me to compose this little verse.

Wearing different cloaks
for different folks,
Only truly naked
when facing the wall.

Re: frozen /unfrozen

Hi Gary. The fixed identities are slowly falling away. It isn't because of wisdom... more just getting worn out from falling down over and over. Without Zazen, the option of sitting with no enclosure would not have occurred at all. It would just be constant adjusting and patching... Zazen is a basic sanity. I think we learn with our bodies... Zazen is the whole body. Just facing the wall.